Polaroid
by muchtvs
Summary: In honor of the Halloween season, I present a darkfic. Set early season two, when Seth was 'dating' Alex. Rated a HardT.


This story is DarkFic, much darker than what I usually post here.

Definitely a Hard T for objectionable concepts and characters' actions. Just tellin' ya, cause I have no desire to offend anyone. I wanted to take the characters to an extreme, but keep them in character.

Shout-out to **crash**, **jo**, **ctoan** and **maud** for giving feedback and betaing.

Special shout to **overnighter** for organizing the challenge...and especially for having a deadline because without a deadline...I kinda suck at the whole story completion thing.

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Written for the Advent Challenge on LJ

Prompt Words:

1) blue

2) curve

3) maelstrom

4) melancholy

5) whip

Set early/mid Season 2, when Seth was 'dating' Alex….or whatever that train wreck was.

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Polaroid

by muchtvs

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Rosa is on long-term leave, wanting to stay home with a recently diagnosed, terminally ill grandson. She told the Cohens that she didn't know when she would be able to come back to work.

They still pay her every month.

Kirsten is forced to resume domestic chores she has long since abandoned.

On a Tuesday afternoon, she discovers a wadded up Polaroid by accident while sifting through Seth's pockets, searching for items that might get ruined in the wash, such as money, or receipts or tickets to one of the many concerts her son seems to base his identity on.

She recognizes the girl who stands smiling in the picture, her arms wrapped around Seth's shoulders.

Two weeks.

This girl had been missing for two weeks before her body was found three days ago, floating, bloated, unrecognizable.

Fourteen days ago at breakfast, when the teenager's face had been plastered across the front page of The Orange County Register, Kirsten had made a point of asking both the boys, "Do you know her?"

"No," Ryan had shrugged, glancing casually over Kirsten's shoulder at the picture in the newspaper. "She doesn't go to Harbor."

And right then and there, Kirsten should have realized that something was wrong, something was amiss.

Seth had remained silent, quiet, withdrawn, staring at an empty cereal bowl.

Allowing Ryan to do all the talking.

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Ryan examines himself in the mirror, eyes fixed on his own eyes, watching himself breathing in and out.

In and out.

Remembering.

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_Seth wanted to be a bad boy._

_Walk on the wild side._

_He talked about being "bad" as if it was a fucking hobby you could pick up at Barnes and Noble along with a shot of espresso. _

_Rebellion For Teenage Dummies._

"_Come with me to the after-party, please Ryan? This band has, like, a hellacious reputation for excess. Alex has an' in' for us. Do not disappoint me Ryan Atwood. Alex told me to come. She's waiting for me."_

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The pool house door opens a slit.

A blonde head pokes in.

"I need to talk to you, Ryan."

Kirsten stands in the doorway, holding something, looking serious and appearing nervous.

Ryan twitches a smile at her, acts as if he doesn't know what would possibly bring her to his room.

"Sure, what's up?"

She steps closer, hesitantly extending her hand. "I found this."

Ryan stares at the photo.

God, Seth is too stupid to survive.

Ryan's done everything else, taken care of everything else.

All Seth had to do was burn the freaking picture.

He had promised Ryan, sworn to his face, that he would get rid of the goddamn Polaroid.

Kirsten's voice is shaking as she asks, "Ryan, why would you lie to me? You told me you guys didn't know her."

Ryan's voice is unwavering.

"It wasn't a lie. We don't know her. She doesn't go to Harbor."

Kirsten continues to hold out the photo, shoving it forward in the air, towards him.

"This child is dead, Ryan, and you want to debate semantics? You're scaring me. I need you to explain this picture to me. I need you to tell me why you lied."

Ryan takes the Polaroid from her.

Already, Kirsten is an accomplice.

Why else would she simply let him take the photo out of her hand?

Why else is she here asking him about what it means, instead of tracking down Sandy?

He digs through his nightstand, finds an old lighter, sets a corner of the Polaroid on fire, and watches over the flame as it burns, waiting for a reaction from his foster mother.

"What do you want to know?" he asks her softly, looks up at her gradually.

Kirsten purses her lips, licks them, hugs herself, and asks, "I'm just confused over why you lied to me in the kitchen. Seth's been acting so strangely and I just keep thinking…why would you guys deny knowing this girl? I'm scared because I keep wondering…why would you lie unless…do either one of you know anything about her death?"

Ryan throws the smoldering stub of the photo into his garbage can.

Stomps on it, extinguishing the still burning ash.

He shakes his head back and forth slowly.

"No."

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"_We're leaving Seth. You're coming with me. Now."_

_The music was blaring and Seth was wasted. _

_He was hanging onto Alex's skinny waist, a loopy grin permanently plastered on his face._

_Ryan should have put his foot down as soon as the drugs crept out of the VIP room, into the main part of the club. He should have forced Seth to leave the moment Alex teased him with a joint, whispering into Seth's ear, "You'll never know what you're missing until you try it."_

"_He's already drunk Alex, he doesn't need that shit."_

"_Go home Ryan. I can play nanny. Are you jealous?"_

_Some girl, another of Alex's anonymous friends, wrapped her arms around Seth's neck, lit the joint, and blew a dissipating cloud into Seth's face._

"_Alex, he's yummy."_

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From across the table, Ryan watches Seth push food from one end of his plate to another.

He can't remember the last time he saw Seth eat anything other than a candy bar and a cup of coffee or a soda.

He seems to live off caffeine these days.

He's falling apart.

"Not hungry, son?" Sandy asks.

"No," Seth mumbles. "I'm tired, can I please be excused?"

"Sure," Sandy answers. "Try and get some sleep. You look like you could use it."

As soon as Seth is out of the room, Sandy asks them, "Is it me, or has he been acting a little off lately?"

Neither Kirsten nor Ryan answer and it doesn't take Sandy long to switch gears and begin bitching about the case he's working on.

Someone wants to steal more of the public beach front, build more private homes.

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Ryan helps Kirsten clear the plates, puts them in the dishwasher.

He usually does the mundane task by himself, his personal contribution to weathering the storm that is Rosa's absence.

"I want to talk to you later," Kirsten whispers as she leans over him to put a fork in the silverware dispenser. "I'll find you when Sandy goes to bed."

But she never does.

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Upstairs, Seth is doing the ritual.

Checking all his dresser drawers, peering cautiously into the closet.

He sleeps on the floor now, in a sleeping bag, all his lights blazing, convinced that a dead girl might somehow be waiting to attack him from under his bed.

Seth knows he's being irrational, not thinking like a sane person, he readily admits it to Ryan all the time.

"Take these," Ryan hands him two white pills. "I snagged a bottle from Summer's house. You need to fucking sleep Seth. You're a basket case."

"I know, I know," Seth nods furiously. "You're right. I'm sorry Ryan, I'm sorry."

"Take the pills, Seth."

Ryan gives him a glass of water, watches as he swallows the ill-gotten prescription tablets.

Seth has set up a sort of survival camp in the middle of his bedroom, all the furniture pushed against the walls so he has a large, barren section in the center of the room.

A structural maelstrom of manifested paranoia.

It's where he sleeps every night.

It's where he tries to sleep.

"Can you stay with me?" he asks Ryan.

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_Alex woke Ryan up, banging on the pool house door._

_Panicked._

_Trying to sober up._

"_You have to come help me with Seth. I can't do this by myself."_

"_Do what?" Ryan asked, stumbled around, threw on a pair of dirty jeans, reached for his boots._

"_Maya. She fucking OD'd on smack. Stupid bitch."_

"_What?"_

"_Maya," Alex shouted at Ryan, "My friend Maya, that girl Seth and I were dancing with tonight. She fucking OD'd at my place. Right in my fucking bed."_

"_Did you call an ambulance? Where the hell is Seth?"_

"_She's dead Ryan, d.e.a.d. Dead. I don't think an ambulance is going to help. And Seth, Seth is sitting in the corner of my bedroom having a nervous breakdown."_

_Ryan drove Alex's car, willed himself to stay within the speed limit, fast on the straight-aways, slow on the curves._

_When they entered the apartment, he could hear Seth crying._

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"I want you to stay home from school today," Kirsten tells him. "I'm not going into the office. We need to talk. In private."

"I can't skip school," Ryan answers, shoving a math text into his book bag. "I have a Calc test. It's important."

"And this isn't?" Kirsten asks, astonished. She scans the room, left and right, lowers her voice, "I tried to find you last night. We have to talk about the girl, Ryan. Why didn't you tell me you guys knew her?"

"I already told you, we didn't know her Kirsten. Please, just drop it. Don't tell Sandy about it, don't tell anyone, just forget about it. It'll go away."

"Ryan," she grabs the strap of his backpack to stop his retreat, "If you guys didn't know this girl, then why did Seth have a picture of her…with himself no less? He obviously knew her."

"He only met her once at a party, they were both wasted. Seth doesn't even remember talking to her."

Kirsten stares at him, adds an air of authority to her tone.

"Tell me the truth."

"You know what," Ryan answers coldly, shaking Kirsten's hand free of his bag, staring at her with piercing blue eyes, "You want to talk? I can skip my test, stay home, tell you all about how Seth got drunk and stoned and had a three-way with Alex and that girl in the picture. Is that enough or do you want more details? Do you still really, honestly, want to talk? Do you still want to know why your son is in a picture with a dead girl? Leave it alone. I'm handling it."

He's scaring her, his warning reminding her of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

_You can't handle the truth Kirsten Cohen._

She always knew Ryan was a chameleon; it's just been easy to forget how fast he can revert back to the angry, violent young man that first moved in with them.

"Go to school, Ryan," Kirsten says, breaking the visual contact first, looking away from him, into her empty living room.

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"_I can't breathe."_

_Seth sat on the cluttered apartment floor, hyperventilating, his head between hands, weeping, begging Ryan to do something, to fix everything, to make things right._

_Ryan stared at the dead girl. _

_Her face was gray, finger tips blue, eyes wide open._

_She was already cold. _

"_Why is she naked, Seth?"_

"_Jesus Christ, because we fucking had sex! Why do you think Ryan? Why the hell else would she be naked?" _

_Seth whips out the sentences, each word punctuated by errant spittle._

"_You have to calm down, Seth. We can't deal with this until you calm down."_

"_Fuck you," Seth sobbed. _

"_Well?" asked Alex, sitting in the far corner of the room, sitting far, far away from the girl with the dead blue blood in her veins. "Any ideas?"_

"_The ocean," Ryan answered._

_Let the water wash away Seth's sins._

_He pulled the corners of the sheet free from the mattress, wrapped it around the girl._

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At lunchtime, Summer traps Ryan in Harbor's lounge.

"What's up with Cohen?"

"I don't know," Ryan shrugs, feigns ignorance, pretends innocence.

"You haven't noticed how nutty he's been acting?" Summer asks.

Ryan plasters on a smile, blinks rapidly, and says, "We are talking about the same Seth Cohen, right? When is he not acting nutty?"

"This is different," Summer insists. "It's like he was all melancholy and pitiful over our break-up, but now, well, he hasn't bugged me about Zach in, like, weeks and he's not annoying anymore, he's…skittish." Summer stops rambling for a second and looks up at Ryan, really studies him with her big brown eyes, maybe even trying to glimpse into the part of himself that Ryan keeps well reserved from anyone.

"Cohen's not acting exceptionally weird-o-ish to you?"

Ryan maintains his plastic smile, blinks, tells her, "Uh, no. He's just Seth. All he ever does is weird."

"Come to think of it," Summer says, eyeing him skeptically, "You've been less than normal, too."

Ryan grabs his soda. "I have to go. Calc. test."

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_Ryan has all the blinds drawn, the pool house black._

"_You didn't kill her," he tells Seth, impatient with his incessant whining. "She was a junkie. If she didn't OD tonight, she would have probably done it tomorrow night. This isn't your fault. Sometimes shit just happens."_

_Seth wasn't listening. Wasn't comprehending._

"_Give me your pants," Ryan says vehemently. "Shirt. All of it. Your underwear, everything. Give me your shoes."_

"_We should have gone to the police," Seth says, shivering, peeling off the clothing. "We shouldn't have left her there."_

"_**We** didn't leave her," Ryan says, anger growing in his voice, "**I**…**me**…**I **dumped her in the ocean while you sat in the back of the car crying. I'm the one that left her. I made the decision. The blood's on my hands. Do you want to turn yourself in, Seth? Is that what you want? What do you think will happen? You're Caleb Nichols grandson. Do you have any idea how much publicity this will cause your mom and dad? Do you want to do that to your mom? Fucking have the television cameras in her face every time she opens her own goddamn front door? You want to go to jail, Seth? You want to risk taking it up the ass? Or do you want to shut the fuck up and give me your underwear!"_

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Kirsten tiptoes around Ryan, jumps slightly every time the phone rings, and hesitates before answering the door bell. She waits in perpetual fear of the police following careless teenage breadcrumbs straight up to the steps to her home.

She's not even sure what she's afraid of.

She's not even sure what the boys have done.

It's all that's ever on her mind.

Sandy is oblivious to the subtle family dysfunction happening around him. He works long hours, grills steaks, pours Kirsten another glass of wine, jokes with Seth, pats Ryan on the shoulder, complains about his job and the superficiality of it all.

Seth remains quiet, lots of iPod, very little random, human interaction.

Ryan stays distant until one night, when he finds Kirsten half buzzed on the patio, drinking a chilled glass of Chardonnay

"I um, I think we need to take Seth to see someone. Someone to talk to, about…stuff. Does your dad have anyone that you can pay…who won't say anything…about what Seth says to them?"

"Probably," Kirsten answers flippantly. "I'm sure my father pays someone to listen to him and absolve him of his crimes against humanity."

She's tired, so tired of the dance her and Ryan have been dancing and she's frustrated with being scared and it used to be that not knowing was better than knowing, but now, now things are different.

It's been weeks since Kirsten first found the Polaroid and now she's ready to just hear the truth, because she can't live another day with the unanchored, unknowing guilt she's been dragging around.

"So…you'll do it…take Seth… to see someone?"

"What?" she asks Ryan coldly. "Are you actually _asking_ me to play an active part in my son's life? That'll be a change. I thought you were the only one allowed to speak with Seth."

Ryan glances quickly away but Kirsten looks directly at him.

She slams her glass down, startling him.

"You tell me right now and don't you dare lie to me! What did you and my son do to that girl?"

Kirsten can barely make out his answer.

"We washed her away."

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_In a pocket of Seth's jeans, Ryan finds the Polaroid._

"_What is it?" asks Seth._

"_Her picture," answers Ryan._

_Seth holds out his hand. "Give it to me. I'll burn it."_

"_No," says Ryan. "I'll deal with it."_

_But Seth takes it away and Ryan, for some dumb reason, lets him._

_He bundles up Seth's clothes in the sheet and ties a tight cotton knot._

_He has to get rid of it all._

_There might be some of the dead girl on it. _

_Hair or make-up or perfume or flakes of skin._

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Rosa is still on long-term leave, her grandson clinging to life.

Kirsten has to pick up the slack.

She has to do most of the household chores, even the mundane ones, like disposing of things that just shouldn't be lying around the house.

Sometimes Ryan helps her clean up.

She listens to everything he tells her about the dead girl and then she asks him, "What did you do with the eviden….Where did you put the sheet and Seth's clothing?"

He won't look her in the eye but he answers quietly, "In my room."

Kirsten wonders why Ryan did it, why he put the dead girl out to the ocean.

Was he protecting Seth?

Was he scared that if Seth went to jail, she and Sandy would send him back to Chino?

Was he trying to save them all the anguish of a possible trial and the heartbreak of media exposure and community shame?

Was it little pieces of all of that?

Did he panic that night or did he know, through some kind of past experience, what to do?

Kirsten doesn't want to ask these questions.

She doesn't want to hear the answers.

What's done is done.

She reaches up and runs her hand along the length of his face, feels him react, his cheek molding into the palm of her hand, pressing tight.

What's done is done.

One of her father's warehouses has an incinerator and Kirsten has a key.

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On the way home from the warehouse, on the way home from burning all that was left of Her, Ryan sits silent in the passenger seat of the Rover, his forehead cold against the car window, his fingers and jacket smelling of smoke.

He can see himself in the side mirror, eyes blinking, eyes staring back.

He breathes in and out.

Remembering.

"_Do not disappoint me Ryan Atwood."_

"_Go home Ryan. I can play nanny. Are you jealous?"_

"_Maya. She fucking OD'd on smack. Stupid bitch."_

"_Why is she naked, Seth?"_

"_We shouldn't have left her there."_

"_I'll take care of it."_

Ryan can't stand the stench of smoke anymore.

It's embedded in his finger tips and jacket.

The whole car reeks with fire and ash from the dead girl.

He watches himself in the mirror as Kirsten drives cautiously, carefully.

She stays well within the speed limit, faster on the straight-aways, slower on the curves.

And all around, as the Rover climbs the hills surrounding them, lays the sea.


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